In the third quarter of 2023, the Business Ombudsman Council received 310 complaints about abuses by state authorities. For a long time, the tax authorities have been the leaders in the number of complaints against them, UNN writes with reference to the BOC's work review.
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The number of complaints about the actions of tax authorities is 176 (57%). Most often, entrepreneurs complain about tax audits (55 complaints), non-enforcement of court decisions (38), other tax issues (27), inclusion in the list of risky taxpayers (27), and systemic blocking of tax invoices (20). The BOC states that the return to the pre-war taxation system contributed to an increase in the number of complaints about tax audits. At the same time, compared to previous periods, the number of complaints about the blocking of tax invoices has slightly decreased.
"Finally, another notable category of entrepreneurs' appeals concerned other tax issues. These were isolated complaints from companies that had been charged fines by the tax authorities, even though they had taken advantage of tax benefits introduced in the first months of the full-scale invasion. In addition, the Council also had appeals from businesses that were harassed by tax authorities because they could not provide primary documentation to which they had lost access or which was destroyed as a result of hostilities," the BOC states.
Businesses also complained about the actions of law enforcement agencies - 13% of all complaints, customs issues - 9%. It is noteworthy that the State Tax Service is the leader among the state bodies complained about by entrepreneurs - 179 complaints in the third quarter. The second place is taken by the State Customs Service with a significant margin - only 27 complaints.
Business Ombudsman Roman Vashchuk recently said in an interview that the problem for business is not even the level of taxes, but the style of administration. He also added that tax and customs authorities lose 90-94% of cases in courts, either in the first instance or on appeal to the Supreme Court.
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According to experts, this situation with the courts indicates that tax authorities abuse their powers, as the courts break down these decisions. Some, such as economic analyst Pavlo Sebastianovych, directly calls it "schemes".
Among the main such schemes, he names fictitious exports, registration of fictitious VAT from fictitious companies, export of goods under fictitious documents with fictitious VAT and refund of real VAT, twists, blocking of tax invoices, granting risky status to an enterprise and organization of shadow schemes to remove this status.
Dmytro Oleksiyenko, a member of the Taxpayers Association Board, believes that MP Danylo Hetmantsev, the head of the Verkhovna Rada Tax Committee, is behind this administration policy, as no important decisions are made at the State Tax Service without his knowledge. And he actually runs the tax service through his former assistant Yevhen Sokur.
At the same time, Hetmantsev himself called his activities in relation to the tax service "parliamentary control". He also rejected accusations that he was taking over the powers of the executive branch, saying that he was simply helping entrepreneurs.